


To The Weeds

by Peacockery



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baby terrors, Gross Sewer Activity, Reincarnation, The kids are mentioned - Freeform, dark themes, eldritch shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 19:05:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13665378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peacockery/pseuds/Peacockery
Summary: IT muses, deep in the pit of the sewers after the Losers had done it in after the first fight in the cistern.





	To The Weeds

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to dabble in a more Lovecraftian range, so here is a piece that I feel is pretty fitting to the theme and nature of Pennywise.
> 
> Note, I haven't read the entire novel yet, so this is perhaps accurate or it isn't. Just a behind-the-scenes alternate look at where IT went after the brawl in the cistern.
> 
> Warning: This is not a goofy viewing of Pennywise. There are dark themes and graphic imagery ahead to bolster the malicious, eldritch nature lurking in Derry. You have been warned.

_“Because now you are going to starve.”_

Insolent prey, always snapping its jaws.

IT was going nowhere. To the weeds they will go when the teeth of mortality rend the flesh from their bones, and IT will be there in the bowels of the forgotten earth, down in the never-gone where the lost souls screamed, awaiting eagerly with a drooling maw.

The children were brave, kudos to that. They had the freedom to kick their heels and run far away from his snapping jaws, jumping like rabbits in thinking they outsmarted the fox. Nearly three decades of a bitter slumber was nothing to IT- the nightmare had fasted for longer periods. But in time the gnawing curiosities and forgotten troubles will start scampering up their gooseflesh and nibbling at the hairs on the backs of their necks, whispering curious little musings of a quiet little town with no particular grandeur beyond its antiquity. Nothing ever changes in Derry. Nothing worth remembering. IT made sure of that.

Down in the blackened bottom of the cistern, down, down, _down_ among the rotten waters so far below the beloved mound of trophies was where IT lay, turned on its side like a dying vermin on the asphalt. Half submerged, taking in the brackish pool with a golden eye, bloodshot and angry, IT took struggled breaths.

Years of collecting for the meal reserves, gone in a trace. The summer was almost over...the younglings will be trapped back inside for the season far into the next. Sweet, easy prey...so close and yet painstakingly distant. The attack in the cistern had crippled IT into a wretched lame state, weak in its power of mimicry and gurgling among its own blood in ancient water. Starvation was not an option.

Desperation called for ludicrous measures. Every century came with a familiar prickling down the spine of the human visage IT took its disguise after, bubbling up in the beast’s stomach and threatening to purge the belly with a nauseating pull. Even the eldritch weren’t immortal- even nightmares faced impermanence. It was a call to answer a cycle of continuation, when the hunger gnawed too deep.

Days of wasting away in the bowels of the cistern had rendered the damaged shifter void of its full power; in the face of rotting away into nothingness, ancient instincts and mechanisms within its power began whirring to a smoking point. The filthy jester outfit had long been cleaved in half- the bottoms had days ago been sucked into the acrid wastes in the darkened deep. Writhing in starvation, pain and anger squirmed a twisting bed of inky tendrils which clawed at the water and popped restlessly at the air. IT’s belly had stretched and squirmed like a leech, punctured and twitching to feed the gnashing teeth tearing past the sinewy layers.

Like a cat, IT curled around three small tangled masses of claws and wormlike limbs, born of its own damaged form. Three small clones, brought out like offspring from the pits of IT’s being, carrying in them each a glowing ember hotter than the malice of a hundred devils. With a hazy eye IT watched them with what energy allowed, roving in the cracked and shattered porcelain mask of a face it had donned for centuries. Pennywise, the Dancing Clown...gurgling his last laugh in this current form, throat dimming and flickering from a single light still stubbornly holding on.

Like starved rats, the three infant Deadlights feasted and devoured the ochre flesh and inky blood of their own creator. In their fragile vulnerability, they took on the writhing, baseless form in which their weakened self was slowly shifting into, but in time only one will grow strong and survive to be reborn again. Just as it had done before. Just as it will do forever more. It will devour its siblings and gorge on the rats and the dogs until strengthened to shift into something appropriate. Something...dance worthy. And in time, all the memories and sentiments of sweet vengeance will float on back, down, down, down, back into the same ruffled suit with the same cherry smile as if the blows never came and his giggles never stopped. Perhaps next time IT will pick a different look. Perhaps not.

The clownish disguise lifted his shattered face, gazing up at the dim beams of light filtering in from the sunlight above, chopped and flickered by the gushing of fresh water crashing down, down, down.

A soft quiver of dirtied red lips, and IT choked out a wheeze.

**“He thrusts h-his hands, against the post-s..ss...ss.sssss….”**

IT lifted its closest hand from the blackened water, sweeping it over the newborn manifestations of itself that will one day eat, sleep and grow in power until IT’s focus regained and resumed...and from the bubbling tar of madness and malice he will rise, bastardized and cackling in tongues no phoenix could ever squawk to.

Thoughts of the little boy in the bright yellow coat danced along its hazy vision, beckoning of a future when the brats returned, bold and brave and foolish once more.

And IT will be ready once again.

Another bubbling cough wretched itself out of the throat of the eldritch terror, pushed aside from the raspy beginnings of a chortle as it lay its head back down into the shallow pool of baptised grey water. 

**“Aa--a-aand...still insisss..s..tts….he sees the...ghosts…”**

Derry will be fine while IT rebuilds. Like sheep in the field they will bloom in their flocks and feast upon the fresh crisp grasses, none the wiser. The cistern will be safe, and the trophies will be forgotten by them all. The second the miserable wretches step foot out of its town, they will all forget their little victories and move on with their miserable lives. Eating, sleeping, mating. Whatever it is these emotional, vulnerable lambs like to do on this vibrant little rock in the pits of space. Happy, disgusting lives they will all go onto...but nothing leaves this town untainted. They will come crawling back when the seeds of madness and curious longing start calling them back to a sweet surprise.

Three young clones, born from the pain and fear IT will bring back tenfold in sweet, sweet time. Two will wither away fast, and to the victor goes the spoils of taking the remaining orbs within the Deadlights...in time, the world will know true fear again.

27 years was merely a wink of sleep for an ancient terror.

To the weeds they will all come back to IT, and among the weeds IT will be.

**Author's Note:**

> Like clowns? I do too. :) for questions, comments or banana peels, check out my blog at
> 
> Socks-on-parade.tumblr.com
> 
> Spread the love! We all float together.


End file.
